Francis Hagan

The Arthuriad Francis Hagan

Publisher Marketing: It is the final years of Roman rule in Britain and chaos reigns. As the army collapses and the towns fall one by one to the Saxon invaders, competing tyrants and petty warlords turn upon each other. The north of the island remains aloof from the south, hiding behind its walls and forts while in the south, jealousy and intrigue paralyse the remaining town councillors. The last Roman defenders vanish into the Wood of Annwn fighting to the last. All seems doomed. It is a dark time but in that darkness a final light gleams. Deep within a strange storm a figure is found with no past and a heavy burden upon his heart. Alone he spins about him a fateful destiny to unite the warring Britons and bring the Saxons finally to heel in one last battle under the crumbling ramparts of Mount Badonicus. This is the story of Arthur, Dux Bellorum, known to the Britons as the Bear, and Donn, the god of death. A man caught on that cusp between the end of Rome and the dawning of a heroic age. A man in whose hands lies not just the fate of Britain but the end of Rome itself . . . Praise for the Author's previous novels 'The Nowhere Legion' and 'The Janus Eagle': " His characters are realistic and dark, the action is intense and unrelenting, and the story within a story will keep you turning the pages. " S. Brabant "His writing has an elegance and lyrical quality about it, and more than once I caught myself thinking, "I wish I had written that." And I assure you, that is a rare feat." R. W. Peake, Author of the 'Marching With Caesar' novels. "Hagan delivers battles as gritty as the Persian desert. This is simply the best description I have read of what it was to fight in the Roman army. From the strategic placement of units to the cut and thrust tactics of the legionary the detail and the drama is unleashed in crashing waves of action." P. Gillingwater "The prose is just so vibrant and the way the author describes a city or a battle, the day to day goings of a Legion or even the machinations and schemes of those men (and women!) in power - it is all so detailed and compelling that you really do feel you are there not so much as reading but rather seeing events unfold with your own eyes, and then with the very thoughts, prejudices, hopes and feelings of someone from that time. It is a skill I know very few authors to posses, to not only make you care, but to care and think as if you were seeing this tale unfold as a contemporary and not just through the eager but ultimately detached eyes of a modern reader." J. Mason Contributor Bio:  Hagan, Francis I have been writing on and off since I was a shy lad hiding under the bed and scribbling in an out of date diary (I think it was about my space travels). Most of my works have been either plays populated with grotesques who stumble around ruins and those odd places we forget about - or epic tales of those last Roman legionaries as they falter and fall at the end of Empire. In these stories, the dying light of Rome flutters one final desperate time as I seek to follow the last of the Eagles down into their fates. Here, archaeological record, literary fragments, and my own invention intertwine to set a stage ripe for heroics and betrayal.'The Janus Eagle' is the second in a series of novels I am writing which will delve into that fatal period where the emperor Valens is slaughtered upon the fields of Hadrianople and the Goths break forever into the Roman Empire. It is a period fraught with tragedy and heroics, caught as it is on a cusp between the last of the ancient world and the dawning of what we are later to call the 'middle ages' . . .